Despite the severe weather over the past month, eight out of 10 trains still ran to time and almost 92%, or 19,000 each weekday, of scheduled services ran.
The figures were released today in Network Rail's regular monthly report on train performance that, during the four weeks from 13 December to 9 January, 80% of services arrived on time. This compares to 89.8% in period 10 last year.
Train punctuality was affected by the severe weather with a reasonable service being provided on almost all routes. Punctuality did drop during the extreme cold snap but underlying performance remains at historically high levels with, on average over the past 12 months, 91.2% of services arriving on-time.
Robin Gisby, director of operations and customer service, said: “It's been a difficult month and we have not delivered the railway passengers have come to expect. Working closely with the operators, and despite the extreme weather, we have kept the railways open and most services ran with eight out of 10 services running to time. We will work to restore services to their punctual norm in the weeks ahead."
Only two of the 19 operators - London Midland and East Midlands Trains - saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year. London Midland saw the biggest improvement in performance this month compared to the same period last year. Sixteen operators saw significant movement in their performance (over three percentage points):
| Operator | P10 2009 | P10 2008 | % point change |
| Southeastern | 70.0% | 91.7% | -21.7% |
| East Coast | 67.2% | 88.4% | -21.2% |
| First Capital Connect | 72.8% | 93.0% | -20.2% |
| First Scotrail | 72.9% | 88.9% | -16.0% |
| First Transpennine Express | 75.7% | 90.5% | -14.8% |
| National Express East Anglia | 78.5% | 92.0% | -13.5% |
| South West Trains | 82.2% | 93.8% | -11.6% |
| Southern | 77.8% | 88.9% | -11.1% |
| Crosscountry | 77.0% | 87.5% | -10.5% |
| Virgin Trains | 65.7% | 75.7% | -10.0% |
| Chiltern | 89.4% | 95.8% | -6.4% |
| First Great Western | 85.9% | 91.9% | -6.0% |
| London Midland | 83.4% | 78.9% | +4.5% |
| London Overground | 88.9% | 92.8% | -3.9% |
| Northern Rail | 82.1% | 85.5% | -3.4% |
| Arriva Trains Wales | 90.4% | 93.5% | -3.1% |
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